


Rime of the Ancient Mariner

by bloodwork



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Arranged Marriage, F/F, M/M, No Lesbians Die, Stream of Consciousness, listen i just think they could have done a lot better with the outsider, so this is my "your game was good but here is where you lost me" follow-up piece, the outsider isn't That outsider and consequently has a largely different personality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-08-09 18:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16455446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodwork/pseuds/bloodwork
Summary: In the heart of the Brigmore Manor lives the witch boy with the black eyes.





	1. The preface, which is not.

**Author's Note:**

> i just finished these games and the DLC and now i wanna be gay
> 
> reviews are my lifeblood, don't worry, i won't be cryptic in this one like i am in my mr. robot fic
> 
> corvo shows up in the next chapter if you're impatient, sorry, gotta focus on the lesbians because i'm a bisexual disaster and girls make this world spin on its axis

"Would you turn that horrible music off!"

The exclamation was not so much a question as it was a command. While the girl attending to him looked up and turned her eyes to the doorway where the pretty black girl was standing, her face was completely clear of any signs of shock or surprise. This seemed to be more or less a common occurrence, or at least it had happened enough that neither she nor the boy she was sitting beside were moved to do more than just watch her from their spot in the middle of the living room. Ironically enough, no one in the manor actually seemed to spend any time in the living room, preferring the much more open halls or the spacious backyard. Though of course the living room was no closed-off cozy little space, but it seemed that way most times because of the way the lichen and the hanging fern obscured much of the light coming through the windows and grew far enough down that it seemed almost like a second ceiling, one at a height any normal home would have.

The black girl was framed by the soft firelight coming from the fireplace, which made her look like a goddess, maybe. The type that stayed away from wars, even though there was a soft steel to her eyes. Hestia, he thought. Goddess of the hearth. Someone you could come home to and know they would be there to keep you safe, or maybe she was supposed to be the one kept safe, so there was somewhere to return to.

"We're keeping it as quiet as we can, my love," said the girl beside him. Her voice was a honeycrisp melody, so as to keep the other girl happy. Not because she was easily riled — in fact, she was much more resistant to a temper than any of the other witches in the manor — but because of an affection that floated through on her words whether she tried to hide it or not. She dropped her gaze to the boy watching all of this transpire, the dim light making her eyes look almost black. "If it gets any quieter, though, he won't be able to hear it."

He could see it was paining her. With a wave of his wrist, the living room became silent once more, the last note of the Ancient Music hovering in the air for a few long seconds. All at once, the power came rushing back into him, filling each of his limbs like the buzz of alcohol, making him feel tipsy on the euphoria of it. While she tried to conceal it, he could hear his attendant sigh in relief as well.

"It's alright, Vera," he told her. His own voice was barely louder than the sigh she had tried to hide. As weightless as a feather. "It hurts, I know it does. That's why I try to do it when everyone is out in the backyard."

"Why aren't you out with our sisters, love?" Vera asked curiously, looking up at the other witch once more.

Still frustrated, but no doubt feeling as euphoric as the other two, she answered, "They're ... you know. They're doing what they're always doing." She didn't look directly at either of them, instead focusing her gaze on the corner of the room, as if embarrassed. She remained in the doorway, though, so at least she was feeling comfortable enough to talk about it with the two of them.

"Saying things about your magic, you mean," he surmised.

She didn't answer. Her lips were pressed in a line, though, and his heart weighed heavy in his chest.

"It's not your fault," he continued, tentatively, because he didn't want to seem like he was just paying her lip service. Someone like her deserved far more than that. "We're all supposed to love each other as sisters. They're the ones in the wrong, Billie. Not you." When she still didn't say anything, he extended one hand over the side of the bathtub that he was sitting in. The water dripped onto the floor, but the manor was already so full of marsh water that no more damage could be done, really. "Please let me show you how much you should be being loved. The way we should all be loving each other."

It took her a long few seconds, but eventually she crossed the five or six feet to where the bathtub was sitting. The manor was always so cold and wet, but here, with the fireplace in front and him and Vera to her left, and the hot water he was soaking in, and Vera's affection for her so palpable even he could feel it, it had to have been at least twenty degrees warmer than the rest of the manor.

She took his hand, then, her fingers interlacing with his. Vera gave her other hand so that Billie was holding his with her left and Vera's with her right. Like Vera, she gave a sigh that she tried to conceal, but this one was almost a shudder, so much comfort and love and warmth that it nearly shocked the system. Within seconds, Billie had laid her head against the bathtub so that her cheek was pressing against its side, which in a few moments would probably begin to leave a mark, but she looked so content he doubted she would notice or begin to feel any pain for at least an hour.

"I just feel so ... inadequate," Billie said.

His heart broke for her. He was sure Vera's was, too.

"I shouldn't have to use those things you give me," she continued. "I should be strong enough to be good at magic on my own." A heartbeat, then two. "Lady Delilah should probably have kicked me out ages ago."

Vera inhaled sharply. "Don't say that, my heart. On the contrary — you work harder than any of the girls saying these things to you. What's your crime, then? Passion?"

Billie just groaned, which made sense. It was difficult to believe words like those when you spent a significant part of your life being ridiculed for things that were beyond your control, but felt like they shouldn't be.

"I could give you a rune," he told her. "I gave Lady Delilah one. Except she won't use it. And also, it was sort of an accident to make it in the first place. But I'm a lot better now," he amended quickly, because he didn't want her to think that he hadn't practiced a  _lot_ since then, enough that the sisters were always complaining about hearing strange songs from the shadows and getting headaches because of them that sometimes persisted for days. "If I gave you one, it'd be a lot stronger than hers. And I found some really good whale bone for this one, not the gross stuff from before." He decided not to mention how he had acquired the whale bone. He was already set apart from the rest of the witches and he wasn't sure he wanted to give any of them another reason to hate him, if any of them ever did end up hating him which, thankfully, none of them did, at least not yet. Resent, maybe. Jealousy. That sort of thing. Not hatred, yet.

But Billie shook her head, and he felt her fingers squeeze his. "No, it's okay. The bone charms are doing a lot. I don't want to cheat. Thank you, though." He sent another wave of love through to her and he could feel her soul bloom like a rose. "I'm going to miss you when you go away."

His heart slammed into his chest. He'd always been easily frightened, so it wasn't a sensation he was unfamiliar with, but the severity of it left him feeling like he might have to start gasping for air. "When I what?"

* * *

 "Who told you about this?"

He stood there as Lady Delilah paced in front of him, his mind racing. Normally, the Lady would be able to pick up on something like that; certainly, if he was anyone but who he was, she would have known immediately that he was planning to lie to her, or at least suspected it. But because he was who he was, she could no more guess the workings of his mind than she could guess what was happening on a five-foot-square area of the northern shores of Wei-Ghon at this very moment.

"Zevak," Breanna said from a chair on the other side of the room, though her voice carried so much authority that he could hear it like she was standing beside him. "The lady asked you a question. You'd do best to answer it as soon as possible."

"I saw it in a dream," he told them.

"A dream," repeated Lady Delilah, incredulously. She had stopped pacing and was now staring at him, one hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed.

"Yes. The bone charms, you know, when you sleep ..." He brought one hand to his mouth and chewed on the thumbnail there. He wanted to be anywhere else but here. He hated the way they were looking at him, Delilah with that barely-contained rage, Breanna with that thinly veiled disapproval. "You've had dreams," he said to Delilah, which would have been a bargain if he hadn't known for sure that she had. He knew a lot of things he wasn't supposed to know.

Sure enough, the lady exhaled a frustrated sigh. "Yes, alright, I've had dreams because of that cursed thing. Never anything solid, though. Not like you."

She was leering at him, a predator _thisclose_ to catching her prey, which sucked, because like he'd told Billie, they were all supposed to be sisters.

"No," he admitted, "you're right, you're not like me."

Obviously, that hadn't been what she meant, but she couldn't deny it, either. He had no doubt she wanted to scream. He didn't really mean to get on her nerves like that. It just happened, anyway, because of who and what he was.

"I don't think it was nice of you to not tell me I'm to be married," he continued, because he knew she couldn't really do anything to him. Even if she bared her fangs and growled, it was all empty threats. If he really tried to, he could beat her in a one-on-one with a hand tied behind his back. He liked the shadows, that's why he wasn't the coven leader, plus of course there was nothing in him that wanted to be a leader. He'd hate it. And all his sisters would hate him for it, too, though they probably wouldn't hate what sort of power came with their bond. Right now, it was like living in a house of kittens, knowing you had the power to turn them into panthers, but deliberately not doing so. "I think if you really cared about me, you would have told me, so I could have had time to process it. Was I even to be told before they show up to take me away?"

 _You don't understand it all, boy,_ Breanna was saying in his mind. The fact that she was saying it silently and that she knew he'd be able to hear her meant she was far more perceptive of the power he held than Delilah was right now, blinded by anger.

_I don't need to understand it all. I just want to understand the parts that concern me._

_You'll be far happier there._

_I'm happy **here!**_

This line, he said with such force that he knew Delilah had heard it as well. Unfortunately, her reaction wasn't to tell him that she was happy with him there, too, and that they were all family, and that no one would ever tear apart the coven, and any of the words that he had hoped she would say, but ultimately knew she wouldn't. He didn't even let her get the words out. "Never mind," he said. "I'm to put my head down like a good little boy and say goodbye to all of my sisters forever, and that's just how it's to be, because you hate me, and it's not fair, and it's not like I don't know why, but I only ever wanted to be a family."

He didn't wait for her answer. He let the shadows come up and swallow him, and he tried not to think about the fact that Lady Delilah hadn't even reached for him with her magic, not out of love or anger or anything else, as he had disappeared.

* * *

"Zevak, your blood briars are kind of all over the place."

"Oh. Sorry."

Without much effort, he directed a partial, half-assed thought to the blood briars, which was powerful enough, from him, to make them retreat into the floor. He heard Billie and Vera walk into the room once they'd gone, but didn't turn around, even though he could have, since he was using his mind to throw his things into his suitcase instead of his hands. It was a sad sight, too; he was too angry to fold any of his clothing, so it all sat in a disheveled heap that he'd never be able to fit inside of the suitcase. Kind of funny, too, if he hadn't been so livid with Delilah.

"Thanks for not getting me in trouble," said Billie. She looked sheepish, as if it had been her fault that he'd been promised away in the first place. Much different than the attempt at over-confidence she often put on as a mask around the other witches.

"Yeah, well, you're my sister and I love you."

Billie made a sound that wasn't really a sob but was definitely something resembling it. "I hate this. And there's no way they can stop it? I don't want you to go away. You and Vera are the only people who actually act like my sisters in this dumb overgrown weed farm."

"Oh, darling," Vera said softly, and rubbed the back of Billie's hand, which he noticed she had walked in holding.

"There's no way to stop it," he confirmed. "Lady Delilah doesn't want to, anyway. It was her fault in the first place. She said she wants to, like, extend a peace offering or something by giving them her strongest asset. Stupid political bullshit." Usually, his words and tone flirted with a sort of innocence, and something strange that he couldn't verbalize, some different place that he seemed to draw parts of his soul from, that made him seem almost like a seer, or some sort of wizened-yet-possibly-insane elder, something like that. But when he was angry, that connection seemed to be nearly cut, grounding him to a point that he felt like he imagined everyone else must feel all the time, with a hot-iron tongue, feeling reality in every single one of your bones, and your fingers, and spreading out around you. Like you were part of the earth itself, which is what the witches had always told him he was  _supposed_ to feel like, but seeing as he was required to be furious to feel like that, he still didn't know what it was like to feel like you were part of reality normally when you weren't, you know, ready to punch a hole in the wall. "I could do anything," he continued, half-turning back to the suitcase and mindlessly chucking clothes at it that fell over it in heaps. "I could make her take it back, I could, and she  _knows_ that. She knows I'm powerful enough." A crack spiderwebbed along the lower part of the window, which was so old and in such bad disrepair that one more crack didn't matter, though it was frightening to look at. He didn't even glance over to acknowledge he'd done it. "That's why she's making me go away, because she doesn't like that I'm so powerful."

Vera and Billie looked at each other, and then at him. In unspoken agreement, they both moved forward and embraced him, their arms both encircling him, squeezing tight. Anyone else who tried it would probably have been turned into a bloodfly by accident in his surprise, but even his soul wanted to fiercely protect the witches in this coven that really did act like his sisters. He brought his own arms around them and the three of them stood there crying. Well, Vera and Billie did, anyway. He wanted to, but crying had always cruelly eluded him. His eyes filled with tears, at least, which was reassuring.

"You're right," whispered Vera into his chest, because you couldn't say what she was saying and allow any of the other witches to overhear it, which was why she wasn't outright saying what she thought about Lady Delilah, and what orifice she could go screw herself in. "You're right, it's so stupid, it's not fair. It's not your fault you're the way you are. It's not even anything bad."

"Take me with you," Billie pleaded. "You can try that stuff you were practicing, separate my body from my spirit. Take my spirit with you, or something, I don't even have to go by Billie, you can, like, call me by a different name, or something."

"What would I call you?" he asked, because he had to distract himself or he was really going to lose it. Whether through sadness or anger, he didn't know.

"I don't know. Freaking ... like, Megan, or something."

She was so far from looking like a Megan that he couldn't help but snicker. Vera followed close behind, humored by the absurdity of it, and all three of them were in such frayed mental states that they dissolved into half-laughs, half-sobs.

"I'll work on runes for the two of you," he said once they had gone silent again. "I'll send them when they're done, and they'll be the best I've ever made. I'll put something in them so we can speak to each other. Maybe ..." Maybe the place that seemed to fill up his veins instead of blood, he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure about that place, and he wasn't sure if Vera or Billie could survive it. Or even if he could, if he was being honest. "Well, I'll send them, I promise. And we'll be able to talk to each other. Maybe I can even come back sometime. Maybe every week." Now that was wishful thinking, but he was in a wishful thinking sort of mood.

With a start, he realized he'd been overlooking something. Something that he would have given to every girl in this coven, except that he didn't really have the time for it, and Vera and Billie were proving far more deserving of it than any of the other girls.

"I have an idea," he told them, the anger beginning to slowly leech itself back into the air, returning its energy into the world.

Yes, this would work. He was sure of it.

If he gave them the mark, there wasn't any distance in this world that could separate them.

 


	2. An altar, bloodied black.

Duke Luca Abele had not stopped complaining about the overseas voyage to Mutcherhaven District since they'd gotten off the boat.

Unfortunately for the young prince, he wasn't to leave the room, so he was forced to sit here and listen to the ramblings of the duke while he stared out the window, watching the sun dip behind the horizon so quickly that he swore he could almost feel the earth rotating underneath him.

"And you would think—you would  _think!_ _—_ that with the amount of technological advancement that the world has been seeing lately—with Jindosh, mad as he is, you know, he's created those clockwork soldiers, so you'd think he would have come up with _some_ way to travel that isn't by stinking  _boat_. Oh, I absolutely loathe sea travel. I might be feeling unwell for weeks on end after this outing."

A sharp rapping came from the door of the room, an intricate piece of work that looked to have been commissioned by the original owners of the home. No expense had been spared, even on this trip, for the people of interest that it involved. From beyond it, they could hear a voice say, "Hey— if I open this door to find that the young master has stabbed you, it'll come as no surprise."

She stopped there, even though if she had been alone with the prince, she wouldn't have. Sure enough, her remark had earned a smile from him, though it was partially hidden by the hand resting on his face, where the duke could only somewhat see it. Of course, he wasn't trying to hide it from Luca in the first place. He couldn't care less what Luca thought about him. Nor anyone else, really, but as a prince you were expected to care at least a little bit about your image, or pretend like you did.

"Lieutenant Mayhew," started Luca in what sounded like a complaint that had the potential to continue on for another twenty minutes, "I don't understand what your _fascination_ is with ridiculing those who suffer such _afflictions_ as—"

"Oh!" Alexi gave an exaggerated shout of surprise from behind the door. Clearly staged. "Will you look at that? Some sort of disturbance that I'll have to inspect. What a shame. The two of you enjoy yourselves now."

There was a retreating sound of footsteps, though both of the room's inhabitants were fully aware that Alexi had circled back around to resume her post in front of the door. Likely trying to stop herself from laughing, Prince Corvo thought to himself. She really was a professional, but whenever she and Corvo were together, they couldn't help themselves. Especially as Alexi was one of the only people who could truly break through the shell that the prince had built up around himself, like a mask, or a persona, in order to handle all the responsibilities that were thrown at him. One couldn't be too careless, or the next morning they would find themselves the subject of gossip around the kingdom, their carefully constructed image criss-crossing with fractures. He had worked far too hard to allow such a thing.

"And another thing," said Luca, as if anyone had doubted that he would ever run out of things to discuss, "I don't see why it has to be  _me_ in here with you while the rest of them go and retrieve your . . ." Here, he paused, as if looking for another word, which he could not find and settled on the first one that had come to mind. ". . .  _witch_."

"Trust me," said Corvo, "you don't want to be going where they're going."

"Ah, the young master finally allows me the privilege of hearing his voice. Should I send notice home of such a newsworthy event, or—"

Corvo tuned Luca out after that, as he was sure Alexi was doing on the other side of the door — well, partially, anyway, as she did have to keep an ear on suspicious happenings inside the room. There were guards posted below the windows as well, and on top of the roof above the room they were situated in, to make sure that the prince enjoyed the utmost safety. It got rather tiresome, though, sometimes, but of course he'd never had the privilege of enjoying a life any other way. Even from a young age he'd been looked after closely by guards, and he hadn't been allowed to leave the tower grounds until he was nearly twelve years old. Going out into the common areas of Karnaca  _should_ have been liberating, but he was surrounded by security everywhere he went, and no one had dared to approach the young prince in case their intentions were misconstrued, or in case they so much as said something wrong, even a trivial remark.

That wasn't the reputation his mother, the empress, gave, but it was difficult to be genuine with someone who had the ability to order your punishment up to and including death, even if you knew that wasn't the kind of person they were.

That was why he was so interested in the marriage that had been arranged by his mother and the witches of Brigmore Manor. While he wasn't convinced that a marriage between a normal human and a witch was such a good idea, even for political reasons (his mother always  _had_ been the diplomatic type, rather than the tough ruler that he occasionally — only _occasionally_  — wished she was), he had been starved for new contact his entire life. There were his siblings, of course, but one could only spend so many years playing with one's siblings before that too grew tiresome, especially as said siblings began to enjoy other interests and drift slowly apart. Emily, while still enjoyable to spend time with and someone who would get down and dirty in the mud if Corvo asked her to, was attempting to learn high etiquette, which delighted the rest of the tower personnel, as she'd staunchly rebuked any hint of it until just these past few years. Daud, meanwhile, had devoted himself fully to his self-defense and militia classes. Though he'd never be asked to go on the front lines himself in the case of any sort of war, it was clear that the study of such was where he excelled. Besides, it kept him quiet and distracted, which Corvo was grateful for; he and Daud had never really gotten along the way he and Emily had, though they were far from enemies.

Also, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't intensely interested in the witch that they were sending him. He hadn't gotten many details except that this was the most fascinating witch they had.

 _Fascinating,_ he thought.  _Not the strongest. Not the smartest. Just the most fascinating._

He liked the adjective.  _Fascinating_.

If this witch really was that fascinating, he might be able to enjoy his twenties, unlike the years of adolescence he'd trudged through with little love for his semi-isolated lifestyle. And maybe, he thought, maybe when he went to the semi-frequent formal events he and his siblings were required to attend, he would start to sort of enjoy them, with his betrothed by his side. Maybe they would become the sort of thing in which they met each other's eyes a little before ten p.m., with that shared look of knowing, the small, hitched smile, the unspoken statement that both of them were ready to retreat to Corvo's bedroom and spend the rest of the night in each other's arms . . . and likely a little more than that as well.

* * *

 

Corvo was considering taking a nap both from boredom and to keep from having to listen to any more of the duke's monologues when Alexi finally called through the door, "Alright, Your Imperial Highness . . . we're to escort you to see your fiancé."

Naturally, the fiancé and fiancée sounded the same, so Corvo didn't yet have any idea that his betrothed was anything different than a young woman. Details about the marriage had been sparse, and he'd been content with that; he hadn't wanted to build an image up in his mind before it was time and force his expectations on the witch. Luca was under the impression as well, apparently.

"It's about time—I'll bet she's been in the bathroom all this while, making sure she's nothing short of perfect for a member of the royal family—as she  _should_ be, though I'm still not sure why it had to be a  _witch_ —I'm not one to doubt the decisions of Empress Attano, but honestly, it's like—"

"Luca."

"Hmm?"

" _Shut up._ "

This had not been the first time that he'd been told to be quiet, and far from the first that he'd been told to by Corvo. As a boy of only twenty-three years old, however, and considering how long Luca had known him, the duke wasn't offended, nor was he too convinced to obey. In the event of a direct order, he would probably do so, but the relationship between them was more like a child and his babysitter rather than a prince and his subject. Luca was fully aware of this fact, which was why Corvo had had to suffer through his complaints time and time again. (Emily and Daud, on the other hand, had taken advantage of their power; several times, they had directly ordered the duke to cease speaking, though Emily was  _slightly_ kinder about it — Daud's way of asking was to level whatever weapon he was working on at the moment at the duke and assume he got the picture.)

The home was unfamiliar to Corvo, of course, having only been stationed here as a midpoint between the manor and the docks where their ship rested, so he followed Alexi through the spacious residence with Luca tagging along behind, and a few guards following along behind him, hands at the hilts of their swords, though Corvo doubted they'd need to use them. Regicide wasn't much of a threat to their family, since there were several people in line for the throne after any one of Corvo, his siblings, or his mother — and he himself was extremely proficient with the sword — but he appreciated the caution.

He'd already known his fiancé wasn't going to be brought to the house as he was stationed in —  _that_ was risky, since there was no one else in line at the moment to be married to Corvo.

No, instead, the witch was to be brought to the ship, where both of them could freshen up, enjoy dinner together, and then set off on the moderately-long journey back to Serkonos. A few days, for sure. Maybe a little longer if the sea was particularly rough. No whales, though, which Corvo was thankful for, both because whales were rumored to be quite dangerous if you got too close and also because Luca would never shut up if whales were added to the list of hazards from sea travel. Well, not that he shut up right now, anyway.

Currently, he was doing his pre-sea travel rituals, which consisted mostly of complaining about seasickness and claustrophobia, though Corvo found it maddeningly hypocritical considering the duke's palace was on the sea.

However, at one point, Alexi and Corvo were taken by surprise.

"Tell me you don't see those things running alongside the rail car."

"Something running alongside— Your Grace, you must be really tired," said Alexi, though she did stretch to look closer out of the window. She had already been quite vigilant, so Corvo didn't doubt that Abele was seeing things as a byproduct of fatigue. "There's nothing out there," she confirmed. "What do you think you saw?"

Luca seemed somewhat embarrassed, or indignant, Corvo couldn't quite tell which. He wasn't used to being taken seriously by Corvo, Alexi, Emily, or Daud, so having his concerns validated was new to him. "I'm— I'm not sure. Like hounds? But . . ." He made a gesture around his face, though it was a mystery what it was supposed to represent. "Anyway, you're probably right. They were glowing, and I've never seen a hound glow. I— I apologize for the false alarm."

Corvo raised his eyebrows. He caught Alexi's eyes — she also had her eyebrows raised. Whatever Luca had thought he had seen must really have been unusual. The duke didn't often apologize.

"It's alright," Alexi reassured him. She would have put a hand on his arm if it hadn't been improper, because she really did feel bad about the situation. "If you'd like, I can ask Doctor Hypatia if she has any more of that sleep elixir so that you can spend as much of the journey as you can sleeping. The travel can't have been good for your mental state." Corvo had a feeling that half the reason she was asking was so that they wouldn't have to listen to him moan and groan the whole time, but she did a good job at making it sound like she was only concerned about his health.

For a moment, he thought Abele might refuse, but in the end, he nodded and said, "Yes, yes — Hypatia has quite the talent. I'd appreciate that, Miss Mayhew."

After that, the journey back to the ship was relatively quiet. The sounds of civilian life passed by in short intervals, though much more subdued than such sounds would be in the daytime. Still, Gristol had a relatively lively nightlife, and Corvo found himself, as usual, wishing that he could become someone else for a day just to experience such things. At the tower, there were often events that took place well into the night, but there was something intoxicating about the thought of mingling with commoners as they enjoyed . . . well, to be honest, he wasn't entirely certain. Night markets, perhaps? Slow dances on side streets? Parties that would spill out onto the streets with guests trying to hold their liquor, finding themselves too disoriented to stand and ending up on the cobblestone? He'd only ever been tipsy, and even then, barely so. The Empress wouldn't let him get drunk and he had no desire to, since he knew how loose people could get both with their tongue and . . . other things.

But now, like so many other things, it seemed a trademark of an enjoyable life.

He wondered if his fiancé had ever partaken in such a lifestyle. Did witches drink alcohol? He knew they didn't make a habit of spending time with normal people, but did they spend any time at all with them? Ever attend any parties? They had to leave the manor sometimes, right? For ingredients for their spells and things? He'd have to ask the witch about it.

Finally, the HMS _Serkonia_ came into view just off the docks. Corvo's heart felt it was swelling against his chest. Somewhere on that ship was the person he would presumably spend the rest of his life with.

* * *

 

Once Luca had been sent off to his quarters, Corvo was led to a room a few halls down from his. While the ship spared no expense when it came to quality, and was far more upscale than other vessels, which often featured only dreary endless white and gray, the same confusion was present when trying to find a certain room; especially so in the royal ship, which featured little to no differences in its halls, no distinguishing characteristics or anything of the sort that would set one apart from the other. Corvo had gotten lost more than once before, and he was grateful that the guard was there to help him navigate.

"Your destination, Your Imperial Highness," one of the members of the guard said, stopping in front of a door that looked set apart from the others, though not by much. Just enough that the neighbor wouldn't be able to hear what was going on in the next room unless they listened very hard and there was no other noise around. The guard member knocked on the door and called, "If you're ready, your fiancé is here to see you . . ." He paused, clearly unsure what to address someone who  _would_ be royalty soon, but wasn't yet. ". . . sir."

Corvo's heart skipped a beat, which was an accomplishment since it was already sort of fluttering. "'Sir'? I'm marrying a man?"

He didn't have any time to clarify, though, because a voice called through the door, "Yes, I'm ready." Masculine, but not baritone. Most people would be nervous, but the witch's tone suggested he thought of it as little more than another Tuesday. Corvo was . . .  _intrigued._ Yes, the 'fascinating' label would probably end up being true. That, or the witch was so arrogant that it was stupid, but somehow he doubted that. It didn't feel like arrogance.

"Alright, I'm coming in," said Corvo.

He opened the door and slipped inside, leaving the guard behind.

"The lights are off," he said after a second, in which he'd thought his eyes were just getting used to low light.

"I know," said the witch from somewhere off to the right. The . . . bathroom? Corvo wasn't familiar with the layout of the personnel's rooms. Anyway, there was a soft purple glow coming from what he assumed was the bathroom door, so he walked that way, hands out in front of him to make sure he didn't bump into anything. He'd have turned on the light, but he didn't want to be rude if the witch was uncomfortable with them on for whatever reason.

His hand found the doorknob, and he twisted it, pushing the door open to reveal . . .

"Uhm," he said, because that was really all that could be said at a time like this.

The witch was standing in the bathtub, black-and-white hair pushed back with a hairband so that it doubled back on itself in soft tufts. His eyes were so dark they seemed black, or maybe they were black, and filled with questions that Corvo doubted he knew or would ever know the answer to, a natural inquisitiveness that might never be satiated. His frame was sylphlike, diaphanous enough to unnerve the prince just the slightest bit, though more than the witch's body unnerved Corvo, if he was being honest. His hands hung by his sides, limp. He was also completely and totally naked, with the water droplets from the tub that had been caught on his body sparkling in the purple light that Corvo could see was coming from some sort of convoluted platform made of tree branches, about a foot high, maybe a foot and a half. He couldn't tell where the light itself was coming from, but there was a wispy black substance coming from the platform, not like smoke, quite, but he didn't know how to explain it, because he'd never seen anything like it before. Floating around him in the bath were various flowers that must be native to Gristol, since Corvo didn't recognize any of them.

The witch blinked very slowly, like he had just woken up, or was just going to sleep, or maybe  _was_ asleep while he stood here, gazing at Corvo. It felt like time might stop if Corvo moved so little as an inch forward into the witch's sphere of influence.

"Hi, Corvo Attano," he said without inflection. "I think I must be The Outsider."

 


	3. An effigy of bone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it was supposed to be different than this

"His name is  _what?"_

"Well, it's not his  _name_." Corvo was forced to come to terms with the strangeness of this situation for about the thousandth time tonight as he sat across the way from his sister, on a near-identical chaise, the concept of which he always had considered quite ridiculous if one wanted to sit in a normal position, but Emily liked leaning against the one side as she drank her tea, so he supposed he couldn't really deny her the pleasure. "That's just what he told me when we were on the  _Serkonia_ together."

"When you walked in on him naked," Emily confirmed, one eyebrow arched.

Corvo's eyes narrowed. "I told you, it wasn't—"

"Oh, shush, I'm just teasing you. You know that's one of my favorite pastimes."

Unfortunately for Corvo, he'd become the sole target of Emily's teasing lately; ever since Daud had shown an interest in weaponry and begun pursuing it in his studies, Emily had kept from picking on him outright. She'd tried once and had nearly ended up with a crossbow bolt in her forehead. Even Daud felt bad about that; it was only by instinctual reflexes that Emily had dodged once she saw Daud's arm move. If she'd waited even a second longer, they'd have a skewered sister.

"It  _is_ strange, though." Emily crossed her legs just so and nearly spoke into her tea as she raised it to her mouth. "I mean, obviously there's  _something_ going on there. I know witches are weird but, like . . . I'm pretty sure they know not to, like, stand naked in bathtubs when the crown prince is coming to see them. Even if that's the sort of thing they normally do, they're not . . . like, they've  _got_ to know," she finished in exasperation, and drank from her cup to keep from having to elaborate any more, as the verbal trainwreck proved exactly how that would probably go.

Corvo agreed. He'd been warned that witches were of a different breed, but this one seemed of an even more different breed than  _that_. Gone were his fantasies about getting to hear of a commoner's life; this witch seemed like he probably didn't know what that was like either.

Had the witches sent him because he was different? Was that what they meant by  _fascinating?_ That was probably the word Corvo would have used if he was the head witch trying to pawn off some sort of outlier to the coven.

"Maybe Mother had a deal or something?" he speculated, because nothing about his fiancé was making sense. "Like, I know she did this whole thing to improve relations between the covens and the empire and all, but maybe the deal would only go through if it was this specific witch?"

The two of them sat in silence, wondering if their mother had known that such a strange being was to be Corvo's fiancé. It wasn't like she let them into these discussions, not the important parts anyway, not the parts that they didn't absolutely need to know.

Daud showed up a minute later, a permanent scowl etched over his features like always, as if the world had owed him something for a very long time and kept refusing to pay up. Corvo and Emily had gotten used to it; in fact, they were often the ones having to explain to dukes and duchesses from the other provinces that their brother wasn't angry, that that was just the expression that came naturally to him. It was little use trying to change it. Many had tried, but the scowl was here to stay.

"Your fiancée turn out to be pretty?" he asked Corvo with a slight nod in his direction. He and Emily were, without a doubt, the only people in this world besides their mother that could get away with addressing the crown prince with a nod in his direction.

Emily had to bring the back of her hand up to hide her grin.

"Yes," Corvo said. He paused a beat, then continued, "He turned out to be pretty, yeah."

"H-He . . ." Daud burst into laughter. He was quite eloquent and refined himself, when he wanted to be, but among his siblings he saw no reason for it, unlike Emily who had started to adopt her formal mannerisms into private conversation as well, even if not all the way. "I'd ask if you were joking, but you've never really been one for humor, Corvo. By the Void. That's absolutely priceless." Of course, it wasn't that the gender of the witch to be marrying Corvo was that ridiculous, but moreso that it hadn't been expected — it was something akin to expecting the sun to be there when one woke up and instead encountering a solar eclipse. Not unheard of, not catastrophic, just something that might take a bit of getting used to. "What's the name of our future princess?"

Corvo felt heat stain his cheeks. "This is going to sound kind of stupid, but I'm not actually sure."

It didn't sound stupid, really. An arranged marriage meant that everything had been predetermined; Corvo and his new fiancé hadn't had any time to get to know each other. Even on the ship, they hadn't had much more than that encounter in the bathroom, and Corvo was pretty sure he had spoken less than a hundred words to the pretty witch the entire trip back.

"He did say, though," Corvo continued, "that he 'must be the Outsider'."

Daud's face, which had been somewhat bright before with the aftereffects of his laughter, darkened instantly. It was far more serious of a look than even the scowl that he usually wore. If Daud had given  _this_ look to a duke or duchess, Corvo and Emily would have worked to get them out of the room and away from him, because this look was one that said he wanted to fire crossbow bolts into someone's eyeballs and use them for target practice with his arsenal. It was more than just anger — it was hatred.

Emily noticed right away. "What's wrong, Daud?" she asked, the grin gone from her face now as well.

A very long few seconds passed, and Daud didn't move during any of them, almost as if he wasn't even on this earth . . . ?

Finally, he said, "Nothing. I don't know why, but that name just got me really worked up."

Corvo and Emily shared a confused look.

"I'm going to . . . go lie down," Daud said, and the hatred was gone, mostly, except for a few flickers here and there. He looked more bewildered than anything. Likely, he had no idea what had instigated such a reaction in him. None of the siblings had ever heard the name "The Outsider" before. Corvo had felt the tiniest twinge when the witch had first said it, but it was infinitesimal enough to have been waved away as merely maybe similar to a different term he had heard in passing once.

"Feel better . . ." Emily said as she watched him leave the room. "And remember, private dinner tonight with the new witch."

Even though Daud didn't respond, the two of them knew he would be there. Unfortunately, after seeing what had happened upon hearing the witch's supposed alias, they weren't sure if they entirely wanted him to be.

* * *

 The door opened before Corvo had even put his knuckles to it.

As a result, he stood there staring blankly as the witch's head appeared in the space between the door and the frame, his body hidden behind it. "Corvo," he said, the smile somehow reaching his eyes and then his mouth, as if he was smiling in relief. Not  _Lord Corvo_ , the prince noted. Not anything but just plain Corvo. Normally, he might have gotten a bit irritated, even with his fiancé, since they still barely knew each other, but he couldn't bring himself to be irritated with the witch, not really. He wasn't sure why. There wasn't any kind of malevolence beneath the gesture, and the boy wasn't simple, which would have been Corvo's second guess. It felt more like a familiarity, except not the hopeful kind, like he was trying to speed the process along and get to where they were intimate with each other, but rather as if he really did know Corvo.

. . . did he?

Corvo swallowed.

"Hello," he said. "I just . . . came to spend some time with you before our dinner with my siblings, if that's alright. I was going to escort you down."

The witch closed the door and then opened it again, this time fully. Corvo wasn't sure why. The door didn't have a chain on it or anything.

He stepped into the room, looking around and finding himself pleased with the accommodations. It was by no means his or Emily's or Daud's room, of course, but it was far nicer than he imagined a bedroom for the common person might be. Probably much nicer than the Brigmore Manor, too. He'd heard it was sort of a wreck in there. He'd wondered if maybe witches liked it like that? Like it strengthened their magic or something. Anyway, the witch's room was looking mercifully untouched by foliage.

He heard the door close behind him, and turned around to see the witch standing there. Thankfully not naked this time. He was wearing a black halterneck dress, leaving his shoulders and arms bare. The dress was semi-transparent at the chest area — about halfway down the chest it became opaque again, cinching a little at the waist, then continuing down, semi-transparent again, to his knees, though some opaque material ran underneath it down to mid-thigh so as not to be inappropriate. Nearly knee-high high-heeled boots were fitted over black socks that ran a few inches over the knee. He wore sheer black fingerless gloves interspersed with some sort of pattern Corvo couldn't discern, and a wide-brimmed black hat that made him look every bit the witch of a coven that he was.

Corvo suddenly felt very self-conscious, even though he was wearing a suit specifically picked out and tailored to his body type and fashion sense. He had always admired the way the Serkonos emblem contrasted nicely with the suit, but now such an observation felt almost childish. He hadn't realized before how much having a real, actual fiancé would make him feel like a legitimate adult. Living in his mother's shadow for so long had caused him to think he might always be in her shadow, that she would never die and that he would never ascend to the throne. That he might remain feeling like a teenager who would never fully be grown in his entire life.

But here, standing in front of the witch, seeing how effortlessly the witch could make himself presentable even without a personal stylist of any sort (it had been a private dinner, Corvo thought, so what was the use in calling a stylist to the witch's room when it would only be the four of them?), he was beginning to take note of the fact that he had been, well . . . coddled. A little bit. Or maybe quite a bit. He felt simultaneously like a thirty-year-old with a real husband and a real adult life and also like an eight-year-old child playing make-believe that he had all these things, or that he would know how to navigate them.

"You look beautiful," he finally said, because he understood suddenly that he was staring. Though the witch didn't seem surprised, or upset, or anything, really. Just kept looking at Corvo with those strange black eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

He didn't say Corvo looked beautiful, and the prince didn't expect him to. He felt very silly about his clothes, of course, and about his hair, which was pleasing in color, a deep chocolate brown, approaching black, but had a habit of sticking out on the sides here and there no matter how much it was tamed. It wasn't anything unkempt or unhygenic — it just tended to flip up at the ends while the witch's fell in soft black layers around his face, looking like it might be as soft as clouds, or silk, or something like that if Corvo sifted his fingers through it. Therefore, it was okay that the witch didn't say that he looked beautiful, because he looked leagues more beautiful than Corvo could ever hope to.

"We should go," Corvo said. "Uhm . . ." He didn't know how to go about asking the witch's name. It felt ridiculous, now, to have waited so long to ask, even though considering it was an arranged marriage it wasn't out of the ordinary.

He had just opened his mouth again to ask when the witch said, "Zevak."

How had he known what Corvo was about to ask? Did witches see the future? He really should have asked his mother more about witch abilities before he went to go pick his up.

"That's your name?" he asked.

"No," said the witch, "but it's what you can call me." He took Corvo's arm with his long, pale fingers and gave the prince a smile that had as much effect on him as a stiff drink might. "We should go meet your siblings."

"Okay," said Corvo, and let himself be led out of the room, the world seeming to spin fantastically around him with every step.

He only knew when they had arrived at the private room the dinner was to be held in when he heard Emily gasp. It wasn't a rude gasp, just an intake of breath that made it clear that whatever she had been expecting with the witch, this wasn't it — it was better. He watched her come over to the two of them and kiss the air on each side of the witch's head; thankfully, it seemed that the witch's — Zevak's, he reminded himself, because the witch did have, well, maybe not a name, but something he could be called — strange behavior on the ship wasn't a full-time thing, because he followed suit, doing the same to Emily.

"It's so good to finally meet you," Emily said, and she really did sound like it was. "I'm Princess Emily Kaldwin-Attano, though I'm sure you might have known that already."

Zevak shook his head. "We don't pay a lot of attention to things outside the manor. Sorry."

Corvo groaned inwardly. Okay, maybe they still had some work to do on how he spoke to people.

Thankfully, Emily took it in stride, like she always did when things got awkward. "I can imagine. You have such different lives than ours, I'm sure."

"I brought something for you, though," he said, and reached into a pocket of the dress, which Corvo hadn't seen when he had been studying Zevak's outfit for the night. To be honest . . . he wasn't entirely sure it had  _existed_ before this second, right now, even though that didn't make sense. But a lot of things didn't make sense about Zevak.

He withdrew a strange object, something that looked much like a piece of raw whalebone, but with something scratched? burned? into it in an intricate symbol. There were four sort of latches or such like on four parts of the whalebone, making four corners, though the whalebone itself was circular. From the object rose the same sort of wispy gray smoke that Corvo remembered from the platform that had been in Zevak's bathroom on the ship, not quite smoke, white glitter twinkling inside of it.

Zevak held it out to Emily. "For you."

"Ohhhh," said Emily, her eyes wide. It was obvious she had no clue what it was, but it had her spellbound. She took it and slipped it into the pocket of her overcoat. "Thank you, ah—"

"Zevak," Corvo offered.

"It's not my name, but it's what you can call me," the witch elaborated. "If that rune gives you headaches, let me know. I'm still trying to get it perfect."

"Please don't tell me that thing's going to kill my sister," said Corvo.

"It's not. It's—"

The door opened again, then, and all three of them turned to see Daud walking in, looking quite handsome in his fitted suit with the Serkonos emblem and a dark red tie. Which contrasted very effectively with the way his face twisted up in outrage upon seeing Zevak, and the way he growled out, " _You,_ " before launching himself at the witch, the glint of his knife catching Corvo's and Emily's eyes.


	4. Broken coda.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when the watch is broken, for a long time it continues to tick.  
> never going anywhere. continually stuck on that one spot where it broke.  
> backward, then slamming into that spot with all the force it can muster.  
> over.  
> and over.  
> and over.  
> and over.  
> and over.  
> and over.  
> and over.
> 
> put it out of its misery.

Everything happened at once.

Corvo didn't even have the opportunity to move, despite having been about to. The muscles in his left leg had just tensed up to start propelling him forward towards Daud, to stop him from going after the witch with his knife, when suddenly Zevak was no longer standing there but instead about six feet across the room, close to the corner. Instantly. Just like that. Corvo had never seen anything like it. A chair that was placed there knocked aside as the witch came into being beside it. Dimly, Corvo wondered what would have happened if Zevak had appeared in the place where the chair already was, rather than just next to it, but the thought left just as soon as it had come because there was more happening than just the teleportation.

A burst of wind manifested, hurricane-strength, picking Daud up effortlessly and throwing him into the wall. It wasn't strong enough to send him through it. Thankfully, it didn't even seem that he was particularly hurt by it. Rather, he had thumped against the wall and sort of fallen to a heap on the floor, surrounded by things that had used to be on the table and shelves before the wind had picked them up and thrown them around.

"The  _fuck_ ," Daud groaned. He looked disoriented enough not to try standing anytime soon. Even he knew when to call it quits, or at least for now.

Corvo and Emily exchanged a shocked look at each other, then nodded, reaching a silent understanding. She headed for Daud, while Corvo made his way over to where the witch was in the corner.

"Hey," he said, coming up beside him.

The witch didn't respond. His hands with their long, pale fingers were pressed against the wall behind him. He looked like he wanted to melt into it. His eyes were wider than Corvo had ever seen someone's eyes be, and though Zevak's lips were pressed together in a thin line, Corvo could see the shaky breaths that he was taking. He looked for all the world like a very frightened animal that had just narrowly escaped the wolf's jaws.

Corvo longed to reach out and take the witch's hand, but he thought that might scare him even more. From behind him, he could hear Emily consoling Daud, and quietly cursed the fact that his sister seemed to have gotten all the finesse while he often felt like a lumbering ox, emotionally. Or rather he felt like that when trying to comfort other people. This was no exception. He would have traded a lot of things for the ability to speak to the witch like Emily was doing to their brother, calming him and bringing him down from whatever place it was that his mind was in right now. His security. Whatever positive feelings he might have had about this place.

"I'm sorry," he finally said. He kept his voice low, because something was going on with Daud, and he was pretty sure their brother wouldn't be ecstatic to hear him apologizing to the witch, if he really did hate him that much for some reason. "I don't know what happened, or what came over him . . . he's usually so . . ." He was at a loss for what to put at the end of that sentence. Well-mannered? Sort of, but not really. Not homicidal, he guessed would be an appropriate sequitur. "Are you okay?"

Zevak took a few seconds, but finally nodded, three times, slowly and deliberately, like he'd really had to think about whether he was alright or not.

"Okay, that's good. Do you . . . want to leave? We can go back to my room if you want."

 _My room,_ thought Corvo, except . . . he wasn't thinking those words? They weren't his thoughts?

The witch looked at him expectantly.

They were . . . the  _witch's_ words?

Corvo took a very deep breath. He was beginning to think he was a little bit in over his head.

"Okay," he said again. "Your room. Will you let me escort you?"

Zevak nodded again and slowly unpressed himself from the wall. He had just reached out to take Corvo's arm when there was a whistling sound through the air, and before Corvo even had time to turn to see it or to pull Zevak out of the way of the knife that Daud had thrown, with pinpoint accuracy, at him, Zevak's fingers wrapped around his wrist and suddenly the world disappeared like a candle having its last, dying flame be extinguished.

* * *

_My dear Corvo._

Corvo's head snapped up. He felt not like he was awakening from sleep, but rather like he was awakening into it. It was different than the feeling of waking up from a dream. Then, he might feel an awareness, or a clarity, that he hadn't felt before then. Instead, the exhaustion that might plague someone before falling asleep was the sensation that he awoke into, as if living in a world where everything was directly opposite from normal.

Corvo looked around; everything was in a strange grayscale but he was for certain still at Karnaca Tower. Paintings on the walls were shifting and distorted, like there were three or four different versions of them and reality kept flickering between the versions, as if it couldn't decide which one to settle on. Sometimes parts of the floor did that as well, shifting from hardwood and carpet to wilderness, probably the way that Serkonos had looked before anyone had come to settle it. As he gazed down the hall, unsure how to make his body move in this strange new environment, he thought he saw the movement of some creature unlike anything he had ever seen before. Almost like a tree that had come alive . . . ? He wasn't sure how to explain it. Anyway, it was gone as quickly as it had come, and it hadn't been looking at him, so he figured he was probably safe.

He blinked, just a normal human function, and suddenly found himself in another part of the hall, one that was on the way to the witch's room. He still couldn't make himself move, but it was reassuring to know he wouldn't be stuck in that one spot forever because of it.

_My dear, dear Corvo. How long has it been now? How long has it been since I've seen your face?_

It was a situation where Corvo's heart would have sped up into an irregular beat, but his bodily functions seemed to have a mind of their own. He remained as calm as if he was in the realm between waking and sleep, that death-stillness. The voice was Zevak's, but older, definitely older, and far, far more confident than Corvo would have thought the witch would ever have the ability to be. This was not the kind of confidence that came with not caring what people thought of you, but rather a confidence that said that the person displaying it knew with certainty that every single word they said was not to be disputed. Whether it was correct or incorrect was not of consequence; no one alive could argue the words even if they were dead wrong.

Corvo blinked again against his will and found himself standing in Zevak's room. The witch was sitting on the bed with his bare legs drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He was watching the fireplace across the way, which didn't have firewood in it, but rather one of those mysterious altars from the ship, with that grayish glittering smoke rising from it. This one was more detailed than the other had been — there were all sorts of bits of wood sticking out at all different angles, like a briar patch or something of the sort. Or like broken glass at the place where it all rested together, razor-sharp and deadly.

Zevak, Corvo said, but couldn't make his mouth move. He wanted to reach out but, again, just like in the dining hall, he had no ability to comfort the boy who was to be married to him. This time, not even physically.

He was beginning to feel very sick. As he stood — floated? he couldn't move his head to look down, but he seemed taller, somehow, so he thought he might be floating a few inches off of the floor — he felt a sensation as if he was going to be ill, but instead, blood bubbled out from his mouth and — instead of falling to the floor like it might in normal space — floated a short distance in the air before splattering across several invisible surfaces in front of Corvo. He didn't know how to make sense of it, or even to describe it, except that it was something like if someone was holding dozens of sheets of glass at all different angles, glass so fine that one would not be able to tell that there was anything there. He became panicked, suddenly, the first clear emotion he could remember feeling since all of this started. Was he encased by these surfaces? If he had been able to move, could he? Or would he find himself boxed in by this ultra-fine glass-material that was at least hovering a breath from his face, if not on all sides?

He was beginning to wish he had never gone to Gristol. This was far more than he could handle.

_Oh, Corvo. Surely you don't mean that, when you've been through so much? If you'd calm yourself, you'd realize that you're in no more danger than I ever put you in._

Suddenly, Zevak — the one sitting on the bed, his witch, his fiancé, not the one speaking to him — straightened up. Corvo thought any second the witch might tilt his head to be able to hear better. His mannerisms had a tendency to be flirting with something not  _in_ -human, really, but maybe, well, not superhuman, either. Subhuman, but not in the derogatory way. A sort of connection to the soul of the world and of all living things that most people never managed to grasp.

The witch's lower lip trembled just a bit. "Corvo?" he said in barely more than a squeak.

Could he see him? Could Zevak somehow see him, even though Corvo was very certain that he was invisible to everyone except the older Zevak that was speaking to him? He tried to move again. This time, the invisible glass surfaces all around him shattered, and the color returned to the room like a sharp inhale, and Corvo found himself crashing to the floor amidst a shower of broken glass, all leaking that strange grayish glitter smoke from the altar in the fireplace and on the ship's bathroom.

"Corvo!" Zevak cried, and leapt from the bed. Corvo could hear it even if it was taking him a second to get his bearings — largely because he had just become aware of the fact that there had been no oxygen wherever he had been. He hadn't breathed since back in the dining room.

The witch helped him up, and he leaned into Zevak's thin shoulder, relishing in the sensation of Zevak holding him tightly. Zevak's heart was beating like a rabbit's, or maybe even faster, he wasn't sure.

"Hi," Corvo finally said, because he knew he had to say something, or else Zevak would think he was hurt. More hurt than he was, anyway. As it was, the only pain he was really feeling was from the oxygen deprivation. Even whatever the blood had come from inside of him seemed to be of no consequence, though he should probably get it checked out with Dr. Hypatia to be sure.

"I'm sorry," said Zevak. He sounded on the edge of tears. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that . . . it'd be different if it was Billie, you know, or Vera, or even Delilah, they have enough connection with It to be able to handle something like that, but you . . . I didn't think, I just knew you were going to get hurt, because of your brother, and the knife . . . I did the first thing I thought of, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, not without giving it to you, not without . . ." His voice broke then, and one hand crept up to lace itself within Corvo's hair, pressing the prince's face into his pale neck. "I'm so sorry, Corvo, I'll never do that again, I promise . . ."

Corvo knew, instantly, somehow, what it was he was missing. Why he had taken to the teleportation so badly.

"Your Mark," he said.

Zevak stiffened. His next word was barely more than a breath. ". . . what?"

"Your Mark. If I had been Marked, it wouldn't have been a problem, right? In fact . . ." Corvo pulled away slightly from the witch, his eyes searching Zevak's black ones. He didn't know what it was he was looking for. ". . . if I had your Mark, I would've been able to do it myself. To . . ." He swallowed. ". . . to Blink."

"How did you . . ."

_Very intriguing, my dear Corvo. Very intriguing indeed._

It wasn't Zevak, he knew that now. This was Zevak, here in front of him. Whoever the voice was, it sounded like him, but there was no way in hell it was him. Not even another incarnation of him, if witches could do that, or even if they couldn't. He knew it the same way he knew his own name, how he didn't even have to think about it. No, the voice was someone — or  _something_  — else, and he realized he wasn't quite sure that he wanted to meet it.

Zevak was beginning to hyperventilate, a little bit. Not big gulps or anything, but his breathing was quickening. Corvo did possibly the worst thing he could have done at that point, and brought his palms up to cup Zevak's face before moving in to press his first kiss to the witch's lips.

It worked, sort of, as stupid as it was. Zevak's eyes fluttered closed, and he whispered, "Oh . . ." into Corvo's mouth. His right hand came up to press against Corvo's left, still on his face.

"Mark me," Corvo said once they'd finished.

"But I . . . I never did it before, I only just learned runes, you saw the one I gave to Emily . . . it's not even done well, probably, it'll still give her headaches—"

Corvo shook his head. "I don't know how I knew, about the Mark and about Blinking. But I did. And I think you know how to Mark people. You just don't know you do." He worked to twist his expression into some approximation of a reassuring smile. He hadn't given it many times before, so he hoped it looked alright. "If you're going to try it on anyone, try it on me. We're going to be together for a long time, right?" Zevak nodded. "So if you mess up, you have a long time to figure out how to undo it. But I don't think you'll mess up. Try it. Mark me."

He was trying to ignore the hunger that was clawing within him. The feeling of having the world at your fingertips, at being able to accomplish feats no human could. Was that what it felt like to be a witch? If so, no wonder Delilah and her coven had fallen in love with witchcraft. And Zevak . . . he was beginning to doubt that the witch was just the most fascinating. Certainly, he was fascinating as well, but Corvo was fairly certain that Zevak was the strongest witch in that coven, in ways that frightened the rest of the witches, which was why they had sent him away. It just happened to line up well with his mother's desire for peace between Karnaca Tower and the Brigmore Manor. For Zevak, maybe the world wasn't just at his fingertips. Maybe it was even more than that. Maybe the entire universe was nothing more than a toy to him.

Corvo felt the hunger settle at the base of his spine. He had to remind himself not to beg for the Mark.

"Okay," Zevak finally conceded, and didn't waste a second. He pressed the palm of his own hand against the back of Corvo's left and felt the fire spread from inside him and leak into Corvo.

He held the prince of Serkonos as Corvo wailed into his shoulder.

"Shh," he whispered, stroking the back of Corvo's head with his other hand. "It's alright. Look how beautiful my name is on the back of your hand, Corvo. I'm taking your name once we're married, so it's only appropriate you're branded with mine, yeah?"

Before Corvo could compose himself enough to answer, there was a sharp rap at the door. Zevak flinched and stared through the doorway, seeing the outline of one—no, two—four, five—men outside, though he didn't know them, so he wasn't sure who exactly they were. Their yellow silhouettes showed they were armed, though. He called power to himself again, ready to defend the two of them if need be. This time, Blinking wouldn't hurt Corvo, and if he needed to do something more drastic, he would.

"Who is it?" he called, saving Corvo from having to.

"Sir Thaddeus Campbell," said the man, which told Zevak exactly nothing, plus the lack of reaction from Corvo meant there wasn't anything particularly shocking or surprising about him either. "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions, Your . . . future Royal Highness?" He sounded like he didn't know if that was the title to address the witch with but didn't have anything better. Truthfully, it was probably about as appropriate as a title one could call Zevak at this point in time, before their official marriage, which was due in the next month or so, if he remembered correctly.

He looked back down at Corvo, who was breathing heavily, sweat beading all across his face, clearly in terrible pain.

There were five men outside the door. Even with the power that swam through every vein in his body, even with the altar so close, he wasn't optimistic about the consequences of taking on all of them. And he'd like to avoid a fight if need be. Billie would never let him hear the end of it if he picked a fight with someone he didn't need to, even if it was getting out his frustration about the situation he'd been placed in, though obviously he had grown fond of Corvo, who he was sure would let him visit Billie and Vera and his other sisters if he wanted, eventually, especially now that they were connected. Or at least would be, because he definitely wanted to give Billie and Vera his Mark now that he knew he could do it, though of course Billie might be a bit averse to it, since she wanted to strengthen her own natural power . . . anyway, the point was, he needed to try and get along with everyone in this place if he could, at least until he was able to see his home and family again.

He looked back up at the door, the mens' silhouettes still bright yellow. He didn't even need to try to apply this power, yet none of the other witches had been able to even comprehend the feeling when he'd tried to describe how to activate it.

Maybe it'd be good if he was on edge for a little while. Maybe he'd grown too comfortable with his immense power. Maybe being forced to think about it, like he had for a second with Daud, to make mistakes, even, might help him become even more powerful. The thought was intoxicating. And if he was going to teach Corvo how to use these powers without hurting himself . . . yes, putting himself in dangerous situations might actually work to his benefit.

"Alright," he finally said, "I'll be right with you."

Even as he said it, it felt like the beginning of the end of the world.


	5. Leviathan's sorrow.

Emily Kaldwin counted herself extremely lucky. She was sure that, prior to her, there had been many an Empress or Emperor without the company of a teacher that they could also call a friend. Advisors, sure. Corvo had a team of those, and when she wanted to use them, she was allowed, because after all she did live in the tower and make appearances at formal events and to the people of Serkonos. Corvo was quite adamant that Emily was to be considered every bit as important as he was, even if he was to be the one to inherit the crown. He was, after all, a little rough around the edges, and much preferred Emily to be the face of their Empire when he could. Fortunately, seeing how close the two of them were, people generally accepted Emily's word as indicative of Corvo's, so she was treated just how he liked.

Friends, though . . . that was a different position. The advisors to the royal family weren't really friends. It was their job to give Corvo, Emily, and Daud (who rarely visited them, as he didn't like to be  _advised_ on anything, which showed from the way that he dropped any letters he was sent from them into the trash, where Emily had to go and retrieve them later on just in case they said something crucially important) the advice that they did. Surely, they wouldn't mind doing so even if it wasn't required of them, but there was a very obvious difference between someone who taught you things because they wanted you to do well as a political figure and someone who taught you things because they wanted you to do well in life regardless of your position or lack thereof.

Anton Sokolov was that friend to her. Ever since the three royal siblings were children, Sokolov had made a point of spending personal time with Emily. Not in a strange, unsettling way, as she'd thought for a few weeks upon reaching adolescence, the sort of worry that comes inherently to every young woman and is sadly often proven true — over time, the notion passed, as Sokolov showed himself to really just be that interested in spending time with her as a personal teacher and friend. A revolutionary mind of his generation who had transformed the Isles with his technology, Emily was enthralled with his conversation and charm, even if everyone else only respected his achievements and thought him otherwise too eccentric for his own good. People always thought that of great minds, though, Emily always said, anyone challenging the status quo was often looked at with disdain until their ideas took off, and even then, people half preferred to separate the ideas from the person.

That all being said, it was no wonder that the first person Emily went to after the altercation at the dinner was Sokolov.

She'd dropped Daud off, first, no sense in dragging him along to see someone he couldn't really care less about. She'd asked the Guard to make sure that he stayed in his room so he could rest, and to bring him food and drink — possibly he had holed himself up in the armory for so long that he'd forgotten to eat, which had happened more than once before, and that had been the cause of his behavior. Emily was no fool, though. She doubted it was anything as simple as that.

She pushed open the door to the office he inhabited in the first underground level of the tower. "Sokolov," she announced herself, "well-met. How are you?"

The Royal Physician gave a slight start and looked up at the doorway from behind his desk, where he'd been . . . well, Emily didn't really want to think about what he might have been doing. Even when filling out paperwork or something equally menial (when he even  _did_ fill out paperwork; he claimed it took far too much time, time he didn't have if he was to be inventing more and more revolutionary technologies and elixirs, which was something he and Emily, who despised paperwork, agreed on), he was often doing something else strange on the side, his mind never taking a break. She wouldn't be surprised if he'd been dissecting something in a hidden compartment of his desk. "Lady Emily," he answered, giving her a bright smile, or at least as bright as could be when half of your face was covered in thick dark hair and you looked like you'd been standing in the Wind Corridor letting the gales slam into your face at eighty miles an hour for thirty years straight. (That was cruel, she thought, but they often teased one another, so it was likely he'd see such an observation as witty, not rude. Still, she was  _trying_ to be polite and formal nowadays, even if she wasn't made for it.) "You have such a nice knock. It really shows me how deeply you respect my privacy."

This, also, was a reason Emily loved spending time with Sokolov. The Grand Guard would just respond as formally as always if she teased them, besides maybe Alexi, half the time. Being royalty was fun, but sometimes it could be so  _stifling_. Sokolov was always there to trade witty banter, and sometimes even insults, with her, which she supposed could only truly be inherently expected of a Tyvian, the part Sokolov was from, which, despite being able to request it any time, she'd never visited. Someday, she thought, someday she and Sokolov would get on a ship and she'd get to see all the natural beauty of the isle that he was always talking about, harsh as the climate was.

"Well, despite being the Royal Physician, your glass door shows that you were being the Royal Paperwork Filer," said Emily with a smirk as she lowered herself into one of the chairs close to his desk, "so I really don't think I was interrupting anything."

Sokolov groaned and probably would have swept the piles off of his desk if he had had a little bit less self-control. "You're telling me, Emily. My next invention . . . an automaton made solely to fill out these wretched formalities for me."

"I think they call those 'secretaries'."

Sokolov met Emily's eyes, with a twinkle in his own. "If only I had the honor of saying that one with such wit was born from my own loins—"

"Ew, gross!" Emily pulled something from her coat and tossed it at Sokolov, who caught it with reflexes surprising for someone in his fifties. "Take your gift before I change my mind. Never say the word 'loins' again."

As was typical as quite a few of their visits, Emily had brought with her a bottle of King Street brandy, Sokolov's favorite liquor. She had a stash in her safe room, so she'd stopped there on the way, because showing up without a bottle of it was like dangling meat in front of a dog and then dropping it into the sewer. Or so Sokolov said, since he always did have a flair for the dramatic when it came to his alcohol. To be fair, both the dog and Sokolov would probably go after their prized treats even after they had been dropped in the sewer.

"Good girl," said Sokolov, sliding the bottle into a drawer. "I'll send the habber up to the safe room—"

"That's not why I gave it to you. I actually wanted to talk about something else." Emily narrowed her eyes. ". . . I  _am_ almost out of it, though. So if you could . . ."

"Of course, and naturally, I'll continue keeping it your secret from your brothers."

"Thanks, Sokolov. They'd probably kill me if they knew." Which was stupid, because habber weed was harmless and just for recreation, didn't kill your brain cells or anything but she was their sister and they were protective of her. Sometimes when one or both of them wanted to come to the safe room she had to burn what seemed like mountains of incense so she was reasonably certain they thought she had an addiction to  _that_ instead, but better than the truth, she supposed. It was a shame, because both of them seemed so tightly wound that they'd probably benefit from smoking a little. "Anyway, the reason I came to see you was because of something that just happened upstairs that kind of freaked me out. You might know something about it?"

Now Sokolov was intrigued. Emily was different than many aristocrats, and noblewomen in general. She thrived on adrenaline where she could in this stuffy place, and he was honestly surprised that she hadn't attempted an undetected escape from the tower just for the hell of it. Though maybe she had, and she had done it well enough that nobody had ever found out. "Something rattled you?"

"I know, weird, right? It was . . ." She trailed off for a second and pressed her fingers to the spot just above the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes as she recounted the scene. ". . . Corvo's fiancé."

"Ah. The witch, I hear. Wasn't that an effort on the part of Lord Daud's mother to smooth relations?"

Emily nodded. "She doesn't practice witchcraft anymore, or she says she doesn't, but she has to still feel some affection for them. It was probably a good move diplomatically . . . they were free spirits before—"

"Which they find immense comfort in," interjected Sokolov, who had studied what he could of witches.

"—but now maybe they'll reign themselves in a little bit, with our new alliance." Even as she said it, it sounded stupid. Witches, keeping from their strange practices just because they had one of theirs on the inside? Well, at least maybe they wouldn't do things so brashly anymore, and think twice if they ever ran into problems with the Guard, either here or on Gristol, so she guessed it wasn't as ridiculous as she thought. And the entire thing had been done because of Daud's mother's wishes anyway, so maybe the reasoning beyond that didn't really matter. Empress Attano was known to do unusual things for love, though her objects of affection — Emily's and Daud's mothers — were already part of the royal family, so she wouldn't be falling for anyone else anytime soon. "This one, though," Emily continued, "this witch is really . . . something else . . ." As she spoke, she could see his face, the wide prey animal eyes, she could almost feel the vibrancy of his aura as he stood there against the wall, terrified of her brother. "We were all supposed to have a nice private dinner, to get to know one another, no Guard or anything else around, and then . . . when Daud saw the witch, he just . . ." She sighed, exasperated, sort of, but also feeling very hopeless, because she didn't know the first thing about what had led to this situation. ". . . he tried to kill him, Sokolov. Like, as soon as he saw him. Literally tried to assassinate him."

Sokolov hadn't meant to, but he was leaning forward over his desk. He'd seen so much that things rarely had the ability to truly, really surprise him, but Emily's story quite literally had him on the edge of his seat. "And he gave no reason for it?"

"No . . . I tried to talk to him on the way back to his room, but he didn't seem up for it. He just kept muttering, like, these really incomprehensible things . . . kept touching the back of his hand, I noticed that because I thought he might have gotten hurt, but there was nothing there. And the witch . . ." Emily sat up straight now, catching her bottom lip between her index finger and thumb. ". . . he could, uhm, teleport? And summon this huge wind, inside the tower, with no windows around. I don't know much about witches, but I know you do. Can they do that?"

"Witches draw their power from nature. They're able to do quite a number of remarkable things, but their magic stems from parts of this world that are already imbued with life magic. Their magic connects to the inherent magic inside this world and amplifies it. That's how witches do the things that they do." Sokolov was quiet for a second, staring at the floor as he thought. "Teleportation, I'm not entirely sure . . . I think it might be possible, redistributing your life energy somewhere else. Certainly complicated, however. As for summoning a wind with no windows or air flow around . . ." He looked up, troubled. ". . . if possible with witches, I think it would be a very difficult thing to do. Perhaps the breath . . . ?"

"He didn't even have his mouth open." Emily remembered the way that it had been pressed into a very thin line, because she recalled that prey animals usually showed their teeth and raised their hackles when they were cornered, but the witch hadn't done either of those things, not even in his own way. He'd  _attacked_ , like he was very aware that he had the power he did, and didn't need to make himself look scarier than he was, because he was much scarier than he looked.

"Hm . . . you were right to come see me, Emily. This is . . ." Sokolov realized he didn't have a word for it, so he didn't even attempt to find one.

The princess reached into her other pocket and retrieved the thing she had been hiding until she knew for certain she would need to show it. "One more thing. He also gave me this." She held it out to Sokolov.

Immediately, Sokolov stood up with such a speed that his chair was knocked over backwards. "By the Void," he swore, "if you're trying to give an old man a heart attack, you're certainly succeeding."

It hadn't seemed that dangerous, just fascinating. Emily frowned. "You know what this is?"

Sokolov motioned for her to give it to him. She did, and he turned it around and around in his hands, his fingers ghosting over the scorched black mark in the middle, some symbol that Emily didn't know the meaning of and hadn't been able to ask before the commotion at dinner. "No," he said finally, sounding defeated, "but it's . . .  _familiar._ It shouldn't be, and yet . . . it is. What did you say this witch's name was, again?"

"I didn't. It's Zevak, though, that's what Corvo says, anyway."

"Zevak . . ."

He didn't sound convinced, though Emily was fairly certain he wouldn't lie about his name. Then again . . .

"Wait, Sokolov, I just remembered. He said that wasn't his name, it was just what we could call him." She struggled to remember, because she knew he had another name, but she couldn't recall what it was. What had her brother told her as they'd debriefed in that lounge? She'd laughed at it, she was pretty sure. At the time, it had seemed like something a raving madman would call himself, but now, she thought maybe it wasn't the remark of a lunatic but rather a statement more true than truth itself. "I'm trying to remember what it was, hold on . . . oh! Right. He said to Corvo, on the way back, that he 'must be the Outsider'."

Sokolov stared at her like he really hoped she was kidding.

"The Outsider," he repeated.

"Do you know what that means?"

Sokolov shook his head. "No, not the way I should. It's like something is there, and . . ." He shook his head again and said something in a Tyvian language that Emily didn't understand. ". . . I don't know how to say this in Serkonan. It's as if . . . say you walked into your room, Emily, and everything looked the exact same, but you had this feeling . . . this thought in the back of your mind . . . that there was something missing in the room. But you looked around, and nothing was missing . . . but you still  _felt_ as if something was. You have no idea what it is that is missing, so you can't go looking for it, but it's something . . . and because you know it exists, you feel its absence. But you don't know what it is that is absent."

For once, Emily was completely silent. Regardless of having to say it in Serkonan, she understood exactly the sentiment that Sokolov was trying to put across, and it captivated her, that this was the feeling Sokolov was experiencing presently. She felt that she might know some of it, too, as if she visited a friend's room often, and was encountering the same confusion, though because it was her friend's room, she wasn't entirely sure that she was correct, though some part of her was convinced that she was.

"Do you think we should . . . ask him to come and talk to us?" she said finally, after a long period where both of them were silent.

Sokolov was staring at the whalebone he held in his hand. His fingers still ghosted over the mark, and he looked like the sea inside a person late at night, making them forlorn, eroded gently into something hollow. "No," he said uncharacteristically softly, "he won't come to see me. He won't come to talk to me. No matter what I do."

Emily was almost afraid to say the next words, because Sokolov's had sounded so . . .  _sure_. Like he really had tried to talk to Zevak before, though she was sure that he'd never met the witch. "I don't think he'll say no, if we ask. He likes me, I think, or else he wouldn't have given me that thing. Or we can get Corvo to ask him to. They're not in love or anything right now, but they probably will be, eventually. Zevak's really pretty, and Corvo's a genuinely good person, so I don't think it'll take that long for them to fall for each other. And besides, he took Corvo somewhere at the dinner, so he already trusts him. So I can ask Corvo, if you want."

"For now, I think it would be better if this conversation never happened." Sokolov looked back up at her, and she was surprised to see his eyes really were as hollow as he sounded. It wasn't a look she was used to from bright, funny Sokolov and she hated it. This was her friend, someone who had always been there to make the pressures of royal life fade into the background. She didn't hate Zevak for it, of course, it wasn't like it was his fault (hopefully . . . ?), but she wanted to get to the bottom of this so that she could have her friend back.

"Okay," she said, and stood from the chair, wanting to give him a hug, but a little afraid she might break him if she tried. "Thanks for all the insight, Sokolov. I really appreciate it."

"Yes . . ." There he was, sounding hollow as the mines of Batista district again. "Emily, may I ask you . . . a favor? Would you mind if I kept this rune for a little while?"

She wanted to say it had been a present, but he already knew that. Even though she'd really liked the look of it, and had wanted to see if it gave her good dreams or something like that, she couldn't deny Sokolov what he was asking, especially with how deeply it seemed to have affected him. "Of course," she said quietly. "Just . . . Zevak gave it to me, and if he finds out I gave it away . . ."

"You don't need to say anything else. I completely understand. I will return it to you this time tomorrow, if that's alright. I just need to . . . take a sample or two . . . copy down this marking . . ." He was talking to the whalebone again, not to her. Or, what had Sokolov called it, a rune? He probably knew that the same way he knew about the name The Outsider, which is to say, he probably didn't know how he knew.

"Sure thing, Sokolov." She turned to leave. "Thanks again for your help. I'll talk to Daud again tonight and see if he feels better and can tell me anything more about what happened."

She waited for a response from Sokolov. It never came.


	6. The end of all things, and the beginning.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot at stake here / it needs surgical precision / you don't know why right now  
> one wrong move  
> everyone gets a fate worse than death.
> 
> and by the way,  
> this is labeled deceivingly.  
> it's not an AU.  
> that's your clue for right now.  
> what will you do with it?

Contrary to how it looked, Sir Thaddeus Campbell hadn't come to visit the boy on a random whim. Ever since he'd heard the whisperings that Prince Corvo was supposed to be married to a witch from the Brigmore Manor, he'd had his suspicions; it just didn't seem  _right_ to him, the way that the witches tampered with the forces of this world, or wherever it was they drew their power. (He had to admit that like most people he didn't know the specifics of witch magic — just that it existed, and that it was something that could cause a lot of trouble for people the witches weren't fond of.) And now they were to have one inside Karnaca Tower itself? He'd always felt a bit out of place, being a Gristolman in Serkonos, his skin so light it almost matched the snows of Tyvia, and his accent a strange mix of his home country and the country he was currently residing in. But now, he felt especially out of place, apparently one of the only ones who wasn't comfortable with a witch living among them in the Tower. Or, he'd thought that, anyway. With a few remarks during night outings or semi-private lunches he'd been able to sow a few seeds of doubt among those in his circle. They were at least questioning it, now, the safety of having someone with those sorts of curses (he refused to ever refer to them as gifts, or even magic; magic inferred that they were magical, fantastic, wondrous, and they certainly were  _not_ ) in their close proximity, where he could likely do anything he wanted to them. Control them, moving their hands and arms around, maybe. Make his own voice come from them, or something like that.

Even as he escorted the witch to an unused former office (not his, of course, he wouldn't let the witch anywhere  _near_ a place he frequented, just in case the damned thing hexed it), he felt as if the witch was peeking into his brain, reading all his secrets, of which he had quite a few . . . but it was no one's business except his own, just like any man's. There was nothing wrong with any person wanting their thoughts kept inside their own head, where they were supposed to be.

A little frustrating, however, that the witch wasn't even slightly afraid, or maybe was good at not showing it. Either way, it annoyed Campbell. Not like he was of a particularly high office here, but the witch wasn't married  _yet_ , and he had just arrived. He was either obnoxiously arrogant or incredibly ignorant. Maybe both.

Once they had reached the office, he let the rest of the men that had come along with him go, or so the witch would think. Really they were stationed at the ends of the halls, and one just outside the door, but the walls were thick enough here that the witch wouldn't be able to hear any minute sounds he made. He was fairly certain the witch wouldn't try anything right now, not until he could worm his way into Campbell's mind and do those horrible black magic tricks, no, not magic, never magic, those curses. Hexes. Even witches had to have their limits with magic, right? When you stormed someone's stronghold you had to know how to get inside first.

He hoped.

He sat there looking at the witch, who was sat in the chair across from him, his hands in his lap. He wasn't fidgeting with them. In fact, they were curiously still. The eyes blinked back at him, large and dark, like they'd seen the entirety of the world. Of course, that was just a poetic streak in Campbell, the boy couldn't really have done anything like that.

He'd heard that something had happened in the private dinner the royal siblings were to have, but he hadn't heard the specifics. Anyway, he shouldn't ask about that. If the witch got too defensive too fast he'd never be able to . . . well, he wasn't really sure what his goal was yet. To find out as much information as he could, he guessed, maybe appeal to the Empress's advisors, make them make her see reason. It seemed ridiculous that she'd go to such a length to secure ties between Serkonos and the Gristol witches.

That being said, he had a lot of questions to ask, and he was trying to figure out what the first one would be. Something that wouldn't raise too much suspicion, yet would get a foot in the door. Probably, he should have waited a little while more before talking to the witch. Should have spent the time gathering intel, eavesdropping, things like that. But he couldn't help himself.

"You should choose what you're going to say quickly," said the witch. "'Two contrary thoughts cannot long abide in a man's mind or he will become weak-willed and subject to heresy'."

He winced as he said it, just slightly, but enough. Campbell, on the other hand, had been about to snap at the boy, but the words seemed to be hands pulling at the chain of an anchor. He felt his mind turn over like an engine, fail to start, stall, then stop entirely. The fact that it had turned over at all was the part that concerned him.

"Is that what they taught you in Brigmore Manor, boy?" he almost spat. The anger was unexpected, but welcoming.

The witch lifted one eyebrow. He seemed . . . surprised? Confused? Something in the vicinity of those two, like he'd been expecting a far different response. But what could Campbell have said? And even if he had known, he wouldn't have said it anyway, because he was already pissed off the witch had started the conversation. Now he held all the power in the room and Campbell had to wrest it back from him. His fingers itched for the sword hanging at his side.

"Anyway," he said, not letting the witch respond, because he was pretty sure he would, and then he'd have lost his second chance to be the one directing the conversation, "I'm sure that when you came here, you understood that there would be some people who would want to ask you a few questions about your background. About the things that happened in your old . . . coven." Another word nearly spat, though he reigned himself in. It wouldn't do to give in to the strange red tint of hatred that was filling in the spaces inside his bones. What  _was_ that, anyhow . . . ? It was fine, he thought, it was all fine, he was doing a good job, he was leading into it well, making it sound like everyone here had an agenda, not just him. He really had to swallow the vitriol he was being filled up with every time he laid eyes on the boy. It was beginning to really agitate him because, well, he wasn't doing this innocently, of course, but he was pretty sure he hadn't  _hated_ the boy. But here he was, hands folded on the desk, trying very hard not to leap across it and press his thumbs into the witch's throat, watch the life drain from his eyes. "That's all this is," he said, reminding himself as much as the boy. "Just asking a few questions so we can guarantee the young prince's safety, you know."

The witch nodded, but didn't look entirely convinced.

"Why don't you tell me what is it you did back in Brigmore Manor?" Campbell leaned back, one leg over the other, adopting a casual stance. Maybe that would take the edge off of whatever he was experiencing. He opened a drawer, reached for a flask of vodka, the good Tyvian stuff. He had always had a penchant for Tyvian alcohol, the wines, especially. Preferred to save those for show, though. The stuff went down hard, but Campbell had learned a long time ago how not to show it.

Anyone else might have bit their lip and shifted around a bit nervously in the presence of someone imposing like Campbell, with his broad shoulders and big hands, and the way that his eyes always seemed accusatory under his wide brow, but the witch looked more like he was in court. Polished, quiet, still like death. In fact, Campbell could almost smell iron coming from him, like blood. Not blood, though, definitely more . . . substantial. Strange adjective, but it was the only one that came to mind.

"Not much, really," said the witch. "Nothing like you're probably thinking. It was like living in a dorm at university."

He seemed to be expending some effort to speak properly. Campbell got the sense the witch didn't often speak at length. Maybe it was uncomfortable, but he didn't care enough to interject to save him from having to continue.

"My sisters and I spent our time practicing magic. Gathering ingredients, casting spells . . . things like that."

Campbell thought he might have a lead here, possibly. "What  _kind_ of ingredients?"

"Pigments, ah, plant material, that stuff. Oh, also you have to know how to draw spell circles, or else it doesn't work, unless you do it in advance." The witch was getting a little excited now, Campbell noticed, passionate-like. "Like, if you cast a spell that keeps the energy dormant, you know, 'til later, and then you can use it whenever you want, as long as you're not exhausted. Well, that's what all the other witches do. I never did it myself, 'cause I don't need spell circles."

The intrigue was fading. The witch hadn't given him the answer he had been looking for. "Why not?" he asked, just to toss out a last scrap of meat and see if the witch would take the bait.

He shrugged one shoulder. "'cause I'm stronger than everyone else. Breanna's always saying so. She's, like, the mom. Well, along with her wife, Delilah. Delilah's the one who sent me here."

"They sent their strongest witch," reiterated Campbell, sort of hooked, now. Kind of like when you throw a line out to sea and it catches, and you're pretty sure you hooked a tin can, but it  _might_ be a fish, so you want to reel it in anyway. Plus, he was a little curious about this part regardless. "Why would they do that?"

The witch shrugged again.

"You're sure you're the strongest?"

Campbell couldn't deny that part was meant as a little bit of a dig. Mean to be bullying a kid who couldn't be older than twenty, but he was past caring. Even if he wasn't strangling this child, he didn't have to be  _nice_ to him. Just cordial enough that he wouldn't go running off to Corvo the second that he left this room.

The witch's eyes narrowed. "I'm positive."

"I see." He took another swig of the vodka. This one went down nice and easy, and he could feel his thoughts beginning to cloud just the smallest bit, since he hadn't eaten for quite some time now. He'd had enough throughout the years not to get sick drinking a little bit on an empty stomach. He'd been trying to stop, though. He was a good man, he thought, and good men shouldn't fall prey to desires of the flesh. Right? "Stronger than this Breanna woman?" he asked, just for kicks. No harm finding out whatever he could under the guise of concern and somewhat-friendly conversation.

"Lots," the witch said.

Campbell lifted both eyebrows. "Really. So why aren't  _you_ the . . ." What did you call the head of a coven? Certainly you didn't really call them the  _mother_.

The witch didn't help in the least. "'cause Breanna's older. She's an adult, and so is Lady Delilah. And Delilah started the coven in the first place, so she gets to be in charge."

Campbell was trying to find a way to segue into asking about the witches' magic, but it was proving difficult. And in any case, maybe he could still manage the transition. Besides, the witch was opening up more, for the precise reason that the conversation didn't seem insidious, so maybe there was a silver lining here. "But Delilah still needs to use spell circles. Unlike you. And you don't resent her for having power over you?"

Okay, color him somewhat curious. He hadn't known witch politics were so convoluted. In his world, things were very ordered and methodical. Those who had more power should have higher office. At least that was the way things had worked in Gristol. Here in Serkonos, a different country with different traditions and rules, it seemed more like people were . . . communal. Everyone helping each other out. Like Tyvia, almost, before the Presidium had taken up shop after the alliance, still pushing the "everyone is equal" rhetoric though Campbell knew that wasn't the case, especially if the rumors of Utyrka were to be believed. Anyway, the idea of a family all sharing resources in Gristol of all places was a little surprising, but he guessed some people fell into that naturally even if they didn't have any personal model to go off of.

"No," said the witch. "At Brigmore, it doesn't matter how skilled or not you are. I'm the strongest one there, and I'm best friends with the weakest. Sisters, actually." Those dark eyes shone brightly.

Here was his chance. "How can one witch be stronger than another if you just use spell circles and ingredients?"

"All the other witches get their power from nature and the life force that already exists in the world," the witch chirped, seemingly not noticing the information he was about to reveal. He'd probably lived all his life, or at least most of it, among the other witches, so this was the first time he was really getting to share anything about how witch magic worked. It made sense he was excited about it. "When I use magic, I get it from—"

He realized exactly what was happening, then, and quickly pressed his lips together, eyes wide and a little bit frightful.

Campbell very slowly sat up. Then he slid the vodka back into the drawer, laced his fingers together, and leaned frontwards over his desk again. The anger was back, a slow, seething thing, a coiled-up snake ready to strike. It settled behind his eyes with fangs bared. "From where?" he asked. His voice was so low it startled him.

The witch shook his head very quickly, still pressing his lips together.

"I have to know, to protect Prince Corvo. You know that, right?" As he said it, he could hear his own voice in the back of his head, repeating words that he had never heard before.  _Restrict the lying tongue that is like a spark in a man's mouth. The father of a lie will suffer a punishment compounded by each person who relayed it. Better to live a life of silence than—_

 _Enough!_ he thought back at it. But he didn't disagree. For other people, at least. They shouldn't lie. They didn't know how to lie in a way that would spare people. The witch sitting in front of him certainly didn't. Campbell thought without a doubt the witch would lie to anyone and everyone in order to protect his own skin, when it came down to it. And it would hurt, those consequences would be something awful. If witch magic involved words like the witch was telling him it usually did, saying things over spell circles and ingredients, then surely his lies would taint that magic. Campbell had spent a long time learning how to lie so that it hurt no one. Small lies, ones to make other people feel better, more esteemed. Yes, his own lies were of no evil consequence. Even now, he was only trying to learn as much as he could about the witch to find a way to dispel the threat. One might even call him . . . righteous? Yes. That sounded perfect. A righteous man.

Suddenly, the flask in his drawer had lost all appeal. All of it.

"I can protect Corvo," the witch responded.

No title again. No "Prince". Just Corvo. It bothered Campbell like hell. He was back to itching for his sword. He'd gotten far, though. Best to continue the fascimile.

"So secretive, little witch," Campbell said. "I wasn't accusing you. We just need to know things like this to make sure everyone in Karnaca is safe."

There were a very long few moments in which the witch and Campbell stared at each other, two pieces locked in stalemate, both refusing and unable to back down.

Finally, the witch opened his mouth. Campbell leaned forward, eager to hear.

The boy's lips formed words, but instead of a human voice, the sound of a great whale echoed from every corner of the room. Campbell was an intelligent man, but he would have sworn they were miles underwater from how close the sound was, how encompassing it was. It was louder than even what he imagined the sound of a whale would be from inside one of those slaughterhouses up in Gristol. His head rang with the sound, even the hatred he'd come to know like a friend during this meeting shocked into silence. He would have read the witch's lips, but his focus seemed to be anywhere but the boy in the chair. Like someone had tilted his entire existence to the side diagonally, like he'd drank so much he couldn't keep his head up.

The witch's voice sounded from miles away, like from the surface of the ocean. "Can I go now?"

"Yes," he heard himself saying, though 'himself' wasn't the right word, because it wasn't him who said it, even though it was his voice.

When the guards he had stationed came in to check on him after the witch left, they found him lying on the floor, tears streaming down his face, staring at nothing. He was tracing a symbol over and over on the side of the desk and wouldn't respond to any of their words. Finally, one had the idea of dipping his index finger into an inkwell — surely he didn't have the cognition at the moment to grip a writing instrument — and they watched as the symbol came into being under his finger. A large, swooping C with what looked like a trident pushed through it, a bar through the trident's middle, its tines coming out through the gap of the C.

The whale song continued, the only one able to hear it the boy sprinting and blinking through the halls of Karnaca Tower as fast as he could go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, happy chanukkah.  
> here's your present, kids.  
> thank you for the reviews so far. i love them, and i love you. please keep leaving them if you can.  
> i'll give you one more clue, as another present. this one's not as major, though.  
> the outsider's alias is what it is for a reason.  
> not just a random name.  
> now off to celebrate the fact that when someone told us to assimilate, we killed them.  
> nothing like the holiday spirit!
> 
> :)


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